I always have to make things difficult for myself, apparently. Could have done the poem that I had a whole plan and ample resources for but no, had to go with the one that ‘spoke’ to me. So, the poem that I chose to transpose into a film was The Black Prince by John Ashbery. I think what drew me most to this particular poem was it’s content, the story that I felt it was telling in-between its words. So in making a film I tried to draw that narrative out of the poem. I composed my own narrative which I think thematically compliments the poem and composed a video which I wanted to feel a little bit like a fairytale, the way reading the poem did for me.

I’m in lockdown. I had limited supplies at my disposal and limited options for filming. So the answer; art from an artist who never progressed past lollipop trees (me) and an actor who was less then willing (my housemates cat), plus an actor who really had no say in the matter at all (a cat toy). From those building blocks I composed my masterpiece, and yes lets call this a masterpiece because it is a spectacular flop.

I don’t think this experiment worked at all. I hesitate to say that this might be the worst film I have ever made. It’s mostly that it’s a jumble, it doesn’t feel cohesive, still all over the place and I’m not sure it even fulfils any of the requirements of what a poem film should be, though to be honest I’m still a little confused about what those requirements are.

If I were to pose an argument about why it should be considered a poem film I would back myself with these points. One. It is a transposition, or translation of a poem into film form. I have directly taken my inspiration from a written poem and tried to carry it across. Two. All poems in one way or another are stories, stories have narratives even if they aren’t clearly defined. Therefore a story is just an extra complicated poem. Three. I’ve attempted to use my own stylised film elements that might recreate the feel of a poem being like I wanna be a story but to the left. These include what iMovie calls the “green screen” effect and I call “fading out my cat so he blends in but also kinda look like part of him is missing”. I also used a slow-motion shot at the start. I also purposely chose to include rhyme and repetition in my voice over to kind of mimic the flow of a poem, which I also feel fits in well with The Black Prince as that poem really does read a little more like a story then a poem, its what we call freeform.

Anyway at this point, it is what it is. So here it is.